I thought it might be convenient to have a general, "There's this new game coming out, so I'll talk about it" thread for everybody, so I made one. So yeah, if you've got a scoop on some upcoming, not-yet-released game, fill us in here.

I saw this preview for Muramasa: The Demon Blade for the Wii on 1up.com. Such a tease. The game touts sporting beautiful, 2D sprite graphics and gameplay, and while it's certainly sprite-based and appears to be well-animated, the preview video showcases a lot of running to the right through empty areas.

Worse still, the combat does not seem to be integrated into the level design: In the video, when a fight (and I believe there was only one fight in the whole 3+ minute video) occurs, you basically get locked on one screen while enemies pour in from the sides. Once you kill them (via your typical modern-action-game method of mashing random buttons to unleash combo attacks), you can continue running right.

Naturally, of course, the gameplay is adventure-game style, where you'll need to explore and backtrack through old areas and talk to people and buy things and whatnot. Heaven forbid we forget to pad out the length of the game with dialogue, map completion, and item collecting, instead of offering you creative, challenging level design.

The whole ordeal looks extremely disappointing. Why make a 2D game at all when it looks like it plays pretty much exactly like a 3D action game? Just make your DMC clone like everybody else and be done with it.

Iron Savior
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Proud ApatheistI SWEAR TO SATAN, IF YOU RUIN MY VIDYA ENJOYMENT, MY VIDYA IN GENERAL, OR MY IMMERSION, I WILL FIND YOU AND FUCKING KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND.
Posts: 8,217 Karma: 182

Tough call. For the average consumer, I'd probably say no. It's not a bad game, and I enjoyed it, but it's short, fairly easy on anything below the Hard skill, and doesn't offer many Power Meter options. Really only for people that desperately want to play a new Gradius (e.g., me).

Onslaught is an arcade-style first-person shooter, where killing a bunch of enemies sequentially (i.e., racking up combos) nets you a better score, and thus, better grades. You're basically given all the guns right at the start, and the point is to just fulfill the mission objective for each level and get a lot of points. You're also given two CPU squadmates that stick close to you and act sort of like Options, offering cover to your sides or back, or shooting forward with you, depending on how you decide to orient them.

Would've been a more fun game if the aiming controls were better, and you didn't move so dreadfully slow.

Iron Savior
~*~*~~*~*~
Proud ApatheistI SWEAR TO SATAN, IF YOU RUIN MY VIDYA ENJOYMENT, MY VIDYA IN GENERAL, OR MY IMMERSION, I WILL FIND YOU AND FUCKING KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND.
Posts: 8,217 Karma: 182

I thought of you and my cock got as hard as a diamond, the rope stood no chance D:

Iron Savior
~*~*~~*~*~
Proud ApatheistI SWEAR TO SATAN, IF YOU RUIN MY VIDYA ENJOYMENT, MY VIDYA IN GENERAL, OR MY IMMERSION, I WILL FIND YOU AND FUCKING KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND.
Posts: 8,217 Karma: 182